Team starting out with US Xpress

Well then, here it is.....ANNE AND I BOTH GOT HIRED!. It is a good day to be Craig. Anne is all done and has already talked to her Training Coordinator but I still have paperwork to do. I did not get my dang road test done until 4:30 PM so Chattanooga was already closed. I will get finalized in the morning. So we are back in the hotel and then back to the terminal in the morning and will hopefully get assigned our trainers. Out of 18 who started our class all but one was hired and the other was sent home due to high blood sugar. He was told to come back once his Dr. had it under control. I just want to say what a great experience it has been to this point. From the Recruiter who told us the truth and had us prepared for orientation to the orientation staff who have been wonderful, to the line drivers who did our road tests and not to mention the top notch facilities. We are so pleased with the company we have chosen. We have also made great friends with so many of our fellow inductees. Of course, we will see who we spend the next three weeks of our lives with but so pleased so far. Life is pretty good.

 

OK, so it is Friday and although only five of us in class were students, I am the only one who has a trainer assigned. Wow did I get lucky. My trainer is picking me up right here in Dallas on the way to Houston. He has a dedicated run from Denver to Houston. I will be home two days a week. Pretty sweet but I am not too popular around here right now
If Anne does not get a trainer by this afternoon, instead of going home to wait she is going to head to Chattanooga since our son lives there. Tunnel Hill is the main terminal so her chances are better to get a trainer quickly. Her training coordinator is trying to get her out to get us done about the same time.

We have talked to a bunch of drivers here at the terminal, both solo and team and we are pretty pleased with what we are hearing. Lots of long term drivers and generally happy.

I am heading out tonight about 9:00 PM and I will update from the road.

 

So, my trainer Mike is a great guy and we get along very well. He has a dedicated run between Denver and Houston for Family Dollar stores. He picked me up at the Terminal in Irving Texas in his 2010 Freightliner Cascadia (Very Nice) and I drove about 2 1/2 hours to a little town South East of Dallas. We parked at the first drop and went to sleep. We had 2400 boxes to unload at five stops on Saturday all by hand. I actually really enjoyed the workout, aerobic but not hard. At the end of the day we headed to a truck stop where we refueled and had dinner while I got to watch the amazing fourth quarter of my Seahawks win over the Saints. Who woulda thought? It was then time for a shower and I drove about 4 hours into Oklahoma before we pulled into a rest stop near Bowie and went to sleep. Up in the morning and Mike drove to the Family Dollar distribution center in Duncan OK. Dropped our trailer and hooked up to a full one going to Denver. Mike continued to drive North as we headed toward Kansas and home. South of Oklahoma City I pulled up the weather radar and we saw that Kansas was getting hammered with snow so Mike decided we were headed West on I-40 to Amarillo and then North through Eastern Colorado to Limon on I-70 before turning West towards Denver. I figure we skipped about 6 hours of snow driving. When we were about nine hours from Denver, I took over driving. Max hours a driver is allowed to drive in a day is eleven hours so this should allow me to make it all the way even in the snow. That was the plan anyway. About halfway between the Colorado border and Limon, it started to snow hard. It was cold so the snow was mostly blowing off the road……for a while. The road got pretty bad but we were thinking that once we got to I-70, the road would be plowed and in better shape. We were wrong, I-70 was a mess. A number of wrecks and pretty windy with very heavy snow. The only good news was very light traffic between the storm and it being late Sunday night. The truck handled very well and I kept it between 35 and 45 miles an hour all the way to Denver. We got to the first stop for Monday at about 2:00 AM as the computer hit 10:57 minutes on the clock for my drive time. My daughter picked me up in the Explorer (4 wheel drive) and we were home at about 3:15 AM. Mike stayed in the truck and had to get it towed the next morning as it was snowed in. I was supposed to meet him Wednesday morning to run back to Oklahoma and then to Texas but the weather has played havoc on the deliveries. I should get a call sometime today telling me when to show up in Denver.

We just need Anne to get a trainer so we finish near the same time but Tunnel Hill is pretty much shut down with all of the snow. She took the bus to Chattanooga and is at our Son's house playing with our 2 year old Grandson. I think she will survive.

 

Thank you chompi, we are so looking forward to finishing training and getting out on the road together.

 

OK, I got a call last night from my trainer. He had just finished the Denver deliveries. He had to deliver one store to the front door due to snow and ice in the back. The schedule is all screwed up so we are not going to TX this week. I am meeting him early Friday morning and we are heading to OK to drop this trailer and pick up a loaded one to come back to Denver. Since Anne does not have a trainer yet the lack of hours are not killing me but I would like to get done so I kinda need to get started.